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of England, is worthy of dissenters. Let them dream not for a moment that any discerning and honest mind is to be thus deluded: the consequences of such an event, should it ever be effected, (which God forbid!) be they what they may, (and frightful they must be,) must rest upon their own heads.

They have joined with the infidel scoffer in railing against the established church, they have nerved the arm of the ungodly by their unrelenting attacks upon the established religion of the country, and, by all the influence they could command, have urged on the impious assault; and should they unhappily succeed in the desperate course, they will justly provoke the curse of a distracted and dismembered empire.

The next extract marks the unmixed hatred to the established church which these friends of religious liberty are careful to cherish in their own bosoms, and their anxiety to inspire with the same exalted feelings the people of England :—

"The church has always been, as a corporation, at war with the spirit of the age, at variance with the Commons of England, and hostile to the liberties of the people."

Can anything more grossly false than this be conceived? This attempt to rouse the British people against the church, as their natural enemy, for purposes from which every loyal and Christian mind must revolt with indignation, is at once a most atrocious assault upon the sacred cause of piety and religious liberty, equalled only by its perfect destitution of truth, and of every feature that marks the character of the devout and upright Christian. My last extract will exhibit these men in a position from which it is the duty of every loyal and truly Christian subject to use his utmost efforts to dislodge them without delay :

"The Reform Bill was a revolution-the abolition of the Sacramental Test was a revolution—the abolition of the penal laws in Ireland was a revolution-Catholic Emancipation was a revolution-the church of Scotland has just undergone a revolution-every reformation is a revolution, and those who say we will have no revolution, mean we will have no reformation!"

Aware that the national altar and throne must stand or fall together, and conscious that the people of England are not prepared for such a change, which can only be effected by a revolution, they are attempting to prepare the minds of the people for such a catastrophe by familiarizing the public mind with the word revolution, making it not only a harmless but a beneficial thing, much to be desired. Now, mark the mischievous play upon the word revolution; there is more than many readers, at first sight, may apprehend couched in this word as here used. I have inquired of dissenters how a separation between church and state can be accomplished without a civil revolution, but I have never received a satisfactory answer to my question. They are convinced, that while the British constitution remains unimpaired in all its essential principles, they can never carry their point in subverting the church. Their fanaticism blinds them to the dangerous, iniquitous, and ruinous course they are running. Thus we find they do not scruple to declare that,

if in their course they meet with political institutions, interests, and powers, they must not shun the conflict, when truth cannot otherwise triumph and reign! Can the friends of piety, order, loyalty, and the constitution, any longer tamely allow these wanton and outrageous attacks to be made upon all that is dear to the heart of a Christian and an Englishman? Let not the dissenters say that wrong is done them in the determination we have formed in resolutely defending our rights, both as Englishmen and Christians, even to the death. They are the aggressors, and we must now either sit tamely by and see our dearest privileges wrested from us by the grasping hand of a selfish, heartless, and despotic democracy, or rise to the conflict like men, conscious of the paramount importance of our cause, which, by the grace of God, we are resolved to defend even with our lives. It is not impossible that we may soon discover more moderation, and more guarded and cautious conduct on the part of our adversaries, but let not this reduce us into a belief that the spirit and the designs of our opponents are at all changed. They begin to see that they have gone too far for the present temper of the times, and as more conservative measures may be expected to be pursued by the government, (and a check thus put upon the revolutionary movements which have been so rapidly advancing,) it will doubtless be deemed prudent by these persons to profess their veneration for the institutions of their country, and that they have no wish that the established church of the country should be destroyed. Whatever line, of tactics they may pursue, the friends of the church will only have themselves to blame if the church fall. If, by any crafty and specious measures, which the enemies of the church may see it necessary to adopt, from the change which has taken place in the politics of the country, church men should be reduced into an opinion that dissent has undergone the least change in its virulent hostility to the church, and be thus thrown off their guard, and become less watchful and determined in adopting measures for its security, then will their conduct be that of infatuation, and their ruin the result of supineness. While, however, we are resolved, from a paramount sense of duty to our God and our country, to rise and arm ourselves in the defence of our venerable and apostolic church, the source of our nation's prosperity and glory, let us shew that we can contend "earnestly and firmly for the faith once delivered to the saints," in the full exercise of the most complete Christian charity.

It is a most remarkable and encouraging circumstance that, while the church has been furiously assaulted on all sides, her pious and talented sons are rising up in every direction, and, that intelligence and piety are occupying her pulpits, and, with unusual effect, are proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation to a dying world.

Thus is God with us; and let us be active, humble, and prayerful, and we have nothing to fear, and may adopt, without presumption, the language of the psalmist, as applicable to our church-"God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early. The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge."

OBSERVATOR.

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SIR,-Among other causes which have led to secession from the church, the injustice done to the poor in the distribution of church seats is one of the most obvious. Before the Reformation, the whole area without the cancelli, or skreen, was used by parishioners of all ranks. Every one had access to long, low seats, which were open at both ends, without any other distinction of persons than was wanting to promote good order among the whole congregation. Private aisles for the lord of the manor, or some other principal landholder, sometimes formed exceptions to the general rule; and these, it may be presumed, were appurtenant to their mansions, solely because they were built at their entire charge. In a few parishes this arrangement exists at the present time; but many more, within my recollection, bore similar proofs of the general principle on which the great body of the people had equal claim to every other part of the church. It is, then, with serious alarm that I have witnessed the effects of a very injurious system that has long prevailed in a part of the kingdom with which I am (officially) connected. In the extensive district to which I allude, there are few parishes where the lower classes have not, in this way, had fair ground for complaint. For open seats have been substituted large square or oblong pews, which, for the most part, have been exclusively appointed to the richer inhabitants, whilst the labouring classes, too poor to appeal in form to the ordinary, and hopeless of redress from the churchwardens, have either reluctantly acquiesced in an arrangement that has driven them to benches in the aisles-to dark and dirty corners in remote parts of the church, or, justly offended at being displaced, they have turned to the meeting

house.

It may be said that this is an abuse of power; that the law does not allow it; that the highest ecclesiastical authorities have held that every inhabitant has a right to a sitting in his parish church; that when this is not sufficient for the accommodation of all, the churchwardens are bound to enlarge it. This may be all true, but how is it to be enforced by the aggrieved parties? To them such a principle of law is a dead letter.

The evil calls loudly for redress; and, if authority to correct be not vested in our ecclesiastical superiors, their hands should be strengthened by the legislature. Objectionable as it was, on many accounts, had Lord Althorp's Church Repair Bill passed into a law, the plausible pretexts by which this particular abuse has been supported would have fallen to the ground. The repair and maintenance of the fabric would have become a national charge; no one could then have said, "I am entitled to more accommodation than my neighbour;" and I am persuaded it would have led, at no distant period, to throwing open the whole body of our churches to the parishioners-to restoring to all classes their equal right of access to the house of God. Had more

* Haggen's Consistory Reports, p. 194: Gruer and Wright v. Rector of Hornsey.

accommodation been required for the richer portion of the community than this plan would have given them, where would have been the hardship of their being obliged to provide it at their own cost?

In advocating these popular rights, I am sure I am recommending a (bit of church) reform that would carry with it immediate and intelligible benefits-such as would tend most materially to the increase of religion, and restore much of the good feeling by which the bands of society are strengthened. F.

TESTIMONY TO WATERLAND.

SIR,-There are, I presume, none of your readers who have not heard persons of liberal sentiments declaiming against orthodox bigotry and intolerance, and few perhaps who have not heard the name of Waterland given as a most decisive instance. At least, if he be not quoted, it is not the fault of his two celebrated cotemporaries, Middleton and Pope, who triumphed over the dead lion for his having refused, in his last journey from Cambridge to London, not, as it is alleged, without some expressions of irritation, the assistance of a medical gentleman, who wanted to compliment him as the author of the "Divine Legation of Moses." Mr. Pope, speaking of this "instructive story," as he calls it, says in a letter to Warburton, his informant, "I am sorry he had so much of the modern Christian rancour, as Í believe he may be convinced by this time [about six weeks after the man's death] that the kingdom of heaven is not for such."-(Bowles's Edition, vol. ix. p. 381; or Van Mildert's Works of Waterland, vol. i. p. 325.) It may not be amiss then to lay before your readers the testimony of Samuel Crellius. He was, if I err not, the nephew, certainly of the family of John Crellius, who stands eminent among the Fratres Poloni; and Samuel yielded not to him in learning or zeal. The reader then can hardly need to be told that he would exult in what he considered the certain prospect of delivering St. John from the disgrace of having called three witnesses to prove that his Master was "the only begotten Son, before he cited three others to prove that he was sent into the world to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John iv. 9, 10.) Waterland had received very flattering compliments for his alleged joining in this scheme; but he had as decidedly declined that honour, as he did afterwards what was designed for him by the Hodsden Doctor, so as to draw down the celebrated sarcasm of Mr. Porson on "the excellent Dr. Waterland." (Letters, p. 20, note.) But this was not the only favour that Samuel Crellius intended for St. John. He published a thick octavo to clear the apostle from having said that the Word [the second of the heavenly witnesses] was God.

Such was the man who writes in the following manner to La Croze :

"I became acquainted with only four divines of the church of Eng

land during my stay in that country, as I was very much engaged in bringing out my book. These were Bennet; Reading, who had the management of the library of Sion College, to which I was a frequent visitor; Venn, the minister of the parish in which I resided thirteen months; and the celebrated Daniel Waterland himself, the chief defender of Athanasianism among them. If we may form a judgment of the other orthodox divines in England from these four, you would find but very few indeed any where else in the whole world so affable and courteous to the heterodox. Venn introduced me to Waterland, when we had some amicable conversation at his house, which lasted four hours; and he kept me to supper. When I went to take leave of him at my quitting England, though he had then read over my book, he received me with the same, if not greater, politeness. He spoke to more than one of his friends of my book without shewing any displeasure, and declared, notwithstanding the disagreement there must be between us on the principal subject of it, that there were several other discussions in it, of which he thought very highly, that made him desirous of seeing published what I had there intimated that I had by me. He added that I had acted very properly in bringing forward such subjects in Latin for the examination of the learned. If,' said he, Dr. Samuel Clarke had published his book on the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity in the Latin language also, he would not have given such offence to the clergy of England.' He requested me, if I should ever return to England, to pay him a visit. And thus, after we had mutually offered a prayer for each other's welfare in all respects, I took my leave of him."

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We may be assured that this was not mere common-place civility, for the Unitarian immediately adds, "This is not the way in which Photinus, much less Arius, would have taken leave of Athanasius.” The original will be found in the Thesaurus Epistolicus Lacrozianus, i. ep. 84, p. 104. FRANCIS HUYSHE.

CHURCH OF IRELAND.

SIR,-In a former letter, inserted in your Number for the present month (January), I laid before your readers the result (so far as it was then completed) of the survey which is now being made of the property of the Irish church, with the view of ascertaining the proportion in which the different religious denominations contribute towards it. Since that letter was written, returns have been sent in from a great many more parishes, and I am now enabled to exhibit the condition, in these respects, of 467 parishes in Ireland.

Those parishes contain, collectively, 4,154,102 acres 1 rood and 11 poles of land; and the gross amount of tithe-composition which is levied from them, is 166,6617. 6s. 24d. Now, observe the proportion in which these acres are divided between protestant and Roman

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